d that the "power in the state belonged to him who was
actually possessed of it." Pepin took the hint. He persuaded Childeric,
the last of the Merovingians to become a monk and then made himself king
with the approval of the other Germanic chieftains. But this did
not satisfy the shrewd Pepin. He wanted to be something more than a
barbarian chieftain. He staged an elaborate ceremony at which Boniface,
the great missionary of the European northwest, anointed him and made
him a "King by the grace of God." It was easy to slip those words, "Del
gratia," into the coronation service. It took almost fifteen hundred
years to get them out again.

Pepin was sincerely grateful for this kindness on the part of the
church. He made two expeditions to Italy to defend the Pope against
his enemies. He took Ravenna and several other cities away from the
Longobards and presented them to His Holiness, who incorporated
these new domains into the so-called Papal State, which remained an
independent country until half a century ago.

After Pepin's death, the relations between Rome and Aix-la-Chapelle or
Nymwegen or Ingelheim, (the Frankish Kings did not have one official
residence, but travelled from place to place with all their ministers
and court officers,) became more and more cordial. Finally the Pope and
the King took a step which was to influence the history of Europe in a
most profound way.

Charles, commonly known as Carolus Magnus or Charlemagne, succeeded
Pepin in the year 768. He had conquered the land of the Saxons in
eastern Germany and had built towns and monasteries all over the
greater part of northern Europe. At the request of certain enemies
of Abd-ar-Rahman, he had invaded Spain to fight the Moors. But in the
Pyrenees he had been attacked by the wild Basques and had been forced
to retire. It was upon this occasion that Roland, the great Margrave of
Breton, showed what a Frankish chieftain of those early days meant when
he promised to be faithful to his King, and gave his life and that of
his trusted followers to safeguard the retreat of the royal army.

During the last ten years of the eighth century, however, Charles was
obliged to devote himself exclusively to affairs of the South. The Pope,
Leo III, had been attacked by a band of Roman rowdies and had been left
for dead in the street. Some kind people had bandaged his wounds and had
helped him to escape to the camp of Charles, where he asked for help. An
army of Fra